Aspects of the disclosure generally relate to the field of distributed storage systems, and, more particularly, to synchronizing configurations of partner objects across the distributed storage system.
A networked storage system is a processing system that is used to store and retrieve data on behalf of one or more hosts on a network. One or more storage controllers in the networked storage system operate on behalf of one or more hosts to store and manage data in a set of mass storage devices, such as magnetic or optical storage-based disks or tapes. Some storage controllers are designed to service file-level requests from hosts, as is commonly the case with file servers used in network attached storage (NAS) environments. Other storage controllers are designed to service extent-level requests from hosts, as with storage controllers used in a storage area network (SAN) environment. Still other storage controllers are capable of servicing both file-level requests and extent-level requests.
A networked storage system can be configured to provide high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) capabilities. In such configurations, two or more storage controllers, typically located at different sites, are used to replicate stored data as well as state information such as NVRAM staged I/O requests. Data received from a host by a first controller can be written to storage devices local to the first storage controller. In addition, the first storage controller can replicate the data on a second storage controller by forwarding the data to a second storage controller. The second storage controller then stores a copy of the data on storage devices local to the second controller. In the event of a failure or other problem with the first controller or the storage attached thereto, the replicated data can be retrieved from storage local to the second controller.
Additional HA and DR capabilities can be implemented with respect to clustered storage controller configurations in the networked storage system. In order to provide such HA and DR capability, configuration data is typically replicated across the cluster. Various issues can cause the configuration data to become out of synch. For example, there may be a power outage, error condition, maintenance outage or other reason that can cause a storage controller to not receive replicated configuration data. The configuration data for the storage controller then becomes stale and out of synch with other controllers in the cluster.